Paramesotriton 'orange' hongkongensis ?

[henk_wallays]

Inbetween an import of animals that looked like P. hongkongensis I found this somewhat special colored male (which I couldn't resist bying ... ) . As ususal he suffered from the import and I am busy trying to bring it back to it's usual proportions....

 

[paris]

very sexy fellow!

 

[henk_wallays]

Here's a closer one from the head

 

[freves]

That's a beautiful animal Henk. I picked up a large group of T. shanjing imports this past summer in order to add animals to my group. Several of them have varying degrees of "extra" orange coloring. If I ever get around to playing with my wife's digital camera I'll try to post pics one day.
Chip

 

[louise]

The spotting is most unusual. One of my females is much lighter in colouration to the others, and a couple of my juves have inherited this lighter colouring. The spots are new to me, though!

 

[henk_wallays]

Hai louise, the juvenile P. hongkongensis normally always show a lighter coloration which will alter as they age. ( In chinensis this is different, there the juveniles are charcoals black). In this group of animals only the males did show a different coloration. All the females are darker colored (which applies ot many other newts to ... having a darker better coloration helps not to get detected by predators while the males need to get osme coloration to bragg off with and attract females.. ;-)

 

[louise]

My juveniles are mainly very dark, like the adults, but I have about 3 that are very pale.

 

[henk_wallays]

Are they still in the landhpase ? Ususally the animals (if hey are hongkongensis) get a lighter coloration when they re-enter the water , which is about 2 to 3 years after metamorphosis (or when they reach about 8 tot 10 cm length). They then tend to color somewhat more into a light brown orange
Here is as an addition an image of a female

Do you have images of your juvenile animals where we can see the difference and maybe the lenght of the animals ?

 

[louise]

They are only a year old, so they are still terrestrial. I'll try to dig out some pictures, and I'll take some more later to show the colour difference.

 

[louise]

This is the light coloured adult female and a shot of the babies together. One of the lighter ones is on the right:
I'll try to get more up to date pics later.

 

[henk_wallays]

First off all seems like you had a good breeding there Louise, they do seem do to well (nice filled bellies ) and hope you can continue to rear them further. Yes indeed that one on the right clearly has a more pale colroation then the rest. I guess we'll just have to see how this evolves Louise. In tylototriton shanjing and even in ambystoma opacum I formerly also had 2 types of larvae : darker ones and more pale colored ones. At then end all of them become the usual coloration when going on land. In hynobius retadatus I have pale colored larvae (even white ones) and these have retained their coloration. So let's see what these warted newts become to be as they age and whatever they end up to be .. Normally all your juveniles will get a lighter coloration as they go back into the water, I'm intruiged to see what the differences will be by then. But I'm sure they 'll be welcomed whatever they become anyway , no ?

 

[louise]

Absolutely! I'll try to get some better photos to show the contrast between the light and dark juves later. I'm charging my camera batteries as we speak!

 

[fabian]

Hi,
Henk, your picture reminds me on what Guenter Schultschik describes on this Site:
http://www.salamanderland.at/Artenliste/P.spec/PAR.SPEC.htm
Sorry, text is in german.
Fabian

 

[paul_b]

Some more photos from P.F. Dippold on

http://www.agurodela.de/forum/threa...yleid=1&sid=3276935a389ab569901fe7f71903aff7:

Paul

 

[Ingo]

Hello,

i have animals from the same Import than PeFraDi.
But these animals are different to the animals Henk and Günther Schultschik have.
Look also here:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=52206

Greetings Ingo V.

 

[paul_b]

Hi Ingo,

they indeed are very different to the hongkongensis type, but I think very close to the deloustali/guangxiensis complex.

They are smaller than deloustali, but what differs them from guangxiensis?

Gruss Paul

 

[Ingo]

Hello Paul,

i don`t know P. guangxiensis very well, but in my opinion the ventral coloration is very different.

regards Ingo V.

 

[paul_b]

Thanks Ingo,

so we have to wait until Timo finished his exam work!

I only have seen one animal (http://www.livingunderworld.org/photos/showphoto.php?photo=7694&sort=1&cat=769) and few photos of guangxiensis belly pattern - and few "guangxiensi like" from Vietnam.
They all look different to yours.
But someone who saw them in the wild told me, that their bellies are very different.

Paul